


Chain Reaction

by ephemera (incognitajones)



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: (without sex), Captivity, Escape, F/M, Handcuffed Together, Sex Pollen, Unresolved Sexual Tension, cheesy space opera cliches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-11-12 02:59:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11152833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/incognitajones/pseuds/ephemera
Summary: Cassian pushed up onto his hands and knees, swaying slightly, and managed to haul himself up to his feet, thrown off-balance by a heavy weight hanging from his right wrist. He scrubbed at his eyes with his left hand until his vision cleared.He was in a cramped stone cell, chained to the wall, and he was alone. Jyn was gone.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a gift for Copper_Nails in the May the 4th Rebelcaptain exchange, but I chickened out when I realized it was for someone who’d already written their own (excellent) take on sex pollen. Still, it seemed worth finishing in case someone else out there shares my perverse fondness for the “Sex Pollen Without Actual Sex” trope.

Cassian peeled open one eye and knew things had gone bad. Very bad.

He couldn’t focus on anything but the dusty stone floor his cheek was flattened against. His head felt too big and throbbed hollowly in time with his racing pulse. Everything was an effort: seeing, thinking, even breathing hurt. He concentrated on each individual muscle of his body, struggling through the fog of pain, and managed to make one finger twitch.

He opened his other eye but still couldn’t see anything more than blurs of ochre light and shadow. He pushed up onto his hands and knees, swaying slightly, and managed to haul himself up to his feet, thrown off-balance by a heavy weight hanging from his right wrist. He scrubbed at his eyes with his left hand until his vision cleared. 

He was in a cramped stone cell, chained to the wall, and he was alone. Jyn was gone.

Cassian cursed viciously. Stupid, unforgivably stupid, to have let someone get the drop on the two of them. 

A wave of rage rolled over him and he snarled in frustration before he could rein it in. Wrapping both hands around the chain pinning him to the wall, he fell against it with all his weight, willing it to snap. It didn’t, of course. The only result was that Cassian was left dizzy, gasping and clammy with sweat. He swallowed back a rush of nausea. He hadn’t lost control like that in years. What the hell was happening?

He forced himself to breathe deeply. Stay calm, analyze, evaluate. How had he ended up here? His memory faded to black shortly after they sat down to talk with his informant in the cantina. Anyone, not just Eritt, could have slipped something in the drink Cassian had been carefully nursing. Or it could have been gas, or a needle—anything. How was less important than the result. What mattered was that his partner was missing.

So, sitrep: he was alone. (A hammering chorus of panic at the absence of Jyn broke into his thoughts again before he could silence it.) He’d been drugged with an unknown substance, the aftereffects of which were still roiling in his blood and presumably clouding his judgment. He was in a tiny stone cell with one solid metal door and one barred window—too high for any human to reach—letting in a narrow beam of orange sunlight. He was fastened to the wall by just over a metre of heavy laminasteel chain attached to a manacle on his right wrist.

And while he was out cold, he’d been stripped not just of his weapons, but also his clothes. Cassian was wearing something that—if he were forced to tell the absolute truth—could only be described as a knee-length loincloth, and nothing else. He grimaced at the unattractive sight of his bare, scarred chest and legs. The outfit was ridiculous, so ridiculous it would have been laughable if it hadn’t implied something very unpleasant about the kind of people he’d been sold out to. Which made him even more alarmed that he didn’t know where Jyn was.

The door slammed open. Cassian lurched to the extreme end of his chain, wrenching his shoulder painfully, but the opening was still just out of his reach. Two Gamorrean boars, pikestaffs at the ready, pushed into the cell. One prodded a stumbling Jyn in front of him. The other waved a control wand at the ring where Cassian’s chain was fastened to the wall, and it dropped away. The sudden loss of tension on his arm sent him reeling forward. 

Before he could gather himself to attack, the guard shoved Jyn at him. Her knees collapsed under her and she almost hit the floor before he caught her by the shoulders. The Gamorrean jabbed the razor point of his pikestaff at the back of her neck, grunting a threat, while the other one used the control wand to lock the freed end of Cassian’s chain to a matching manacle on her left wrist. Then they backed out of the door and locked it behind them. 

The whole procedure had taken less than twenty seconds.

Cassian was left supporting Jyn’s limp body against his, and realized he was touching warm, bare skin. She was also wearing very little: a scrap of fine gold mesh over her chest, held up (precariously) by cords criss-crossed around her neck and back, and an almost equally tiny skirt of the same metallic weave. A heavy, floral perfume rose from her, sickly strong, and her loose hair fell in tangled waves around her shoulders. 

“Jyn? Are you alright?” He struggled to keep his voice low and calm, not letting his fear bleed into it. She only mumbled and pressed her face into his chest. Her breath was hot against his bare skin.

Cassian pulled her over to the side of the cell, the chain hanging slack between them, and guided her down until her knees bent and she sat, slumping against the wall. The brief skirt rode up, baring even more of her thighs. He lowered himself and sat carefully cross-legged, facing Jyn, his knees brushing her shin. It took some rearrangement of his own so-called clothing not to expose his bare ass to the cold stone floor.

She dragged her heavy head upright to stare at him. Her eyes were huge and dark, their smoky green irises nearly eclipsed by widened pupils. Whatever drug they’d been given seemed to have hit her system harder. If she overdosed... 

“Jyn,” he repeated sharply, on the edge of panic. 

She blinked rapidly and tried to focus. “Wh’appened?” Her voice was husky, the words slurring together.

“Someone doped us,” he said. 

She rolled her head to the side, letting out a sigh, and her shoulders gleamed in the bar of sunlight from the window. Golden glitter had been dusted over Jyn’s pale skin; she shone everywhere, like stardust. Cassian couldn’t stop staring at the way the light caught on the sparkling trail leading down into the shadows between her breasts.

Stars, what was wrong with him? He’d seen Jyn wearing less before. But that had always been in the context of a mission or training. This near-nakedness was so strange and different that he didn’t have a frame of reference for it. Then Cassian’s brain caught up with his eyes and he realized what all that bare skin meant, what was missing.

“Your crystal—” His hand reached out involuntarily, but he managed to pull back just before his fingers would have brushed the notch in her collarbone. “Sorry.” He didn’t know exactly what it was or what it meant, but he knew it was significant to her. She almost never took it off. 

Jyn closed her eyes, but not before they became even more glassy with unshed tears. Cassian bound his hands into fists and put them on his thighs. He was hot and his palms were sweating, a sharp sting in the scrapes on his hands from pulling on the chain. The overwhelming perfume of spiced roses rising from Jyn caught in his throat, making his nose itch. 

He looked away from her, up at the window. If he knew more about this planet, he might have had a better idea what the angle of the sun meant. All he could tell was that it was nowhere near setting.

Jyn shook her head sharply, trying to rouse herself. “Get out’f here.”

“We will.” He put together a smile meant to be reassuring. “When we don’t check in tomorrow morning, someone will come looking.” 

“Sooner,” she said on a panting breath. “Heard ‘em—while they were dressing me up.” She shuddered and a spike of fury stabbed through Cassian. At least he’d been unconscious while they stripped him. “Auction. Tonight.”

“You mean they’re selling us?” He rattled the chain joining them. “Like this?”

“Yeah.” She let her head thump back against the wall, licking her dry lips and swallowing. Her long, bare throat glistened with more golden powder. “Worth more together.” She huffed out a short, unamused laugh.

“When?”

“Dunno. Tonight was all they said.”

Holy Force. Just when Cassian thought this disaster had reached rock bottom, it kept getting worse. Not only had he managed to comprehensively screw up the mission and get both of them captured, they were about to be put on the block, presumably as some kind of living sex toy… which led to the most plausible explanation for the strange reactions his body was having. Cassian closed his eyes and cursed. Fucking slavers and their fucking designer drugs.

They were unarmed, practically naked, and alone. And now, if Jyn was right, they couldn’t afford to sit tight and wait for help.

He grabbed her arm and lifted it to examine the manacle locked around her wrist. It was smooth, dark grey metal—a match to the one on him—and he couldn’t find any joint or crevice in it. The chain looked like it had always been seamlessly welded to it.

Jyn eased away and pulled her arm out of his grasp. A tiny, bitten-off noise escaped her and his eyes shifted to her face. She was staring at him, her eyes still wide and glazed, and the weight of her gaze on him felt like a touch, especially when it moved away from his face and roamed lower.

Cassian swallowed and glanced up at the window again. The sun didn’t seem to be much lower yet, which was good. Jyn needed more time for the drug to wear off. In this state, he’d have to carry her through any escape attempt. 

Still, they’d only get one chance. 

“The next time someone opens that door,” he told her, “we’re going through it. Understand?”

Jyn bobbed her head up and down. Cassian hoped that meant she’d heard him, not that she was passing out.

He had to keep her awake and moving to burn the drug out of her system faster. He stood awkwardly, mindful of his skimpy covering and the swinging chain, and took her hands to pull her to her feet. “Up.”

Jyn didn’t move, her slight weight dragging on his arms, but she made a low, rough noise of protest in her throat. He gritted his teeth and yanked on her hands again. “Come on.” 

Another tug and Cassian managed to get Jyn upright at last, her head lolling against his shoulder and her warm weight plastered against his side. He clamped his arm around her waist to hold her up and started walking. 

He didn’t know how long they shuffled around the cell, four paces and turn, four paces and turn, but it felt like hours given the way Jyn’s hips rolled excruciatingly against his with each slow step. She sagged into him, her hair trailing down his chest in a teasing, ticklish distraction. The glitter on her skin brushed off onto his and soon his chest and arms were speckled with it. He wondered whether it covered her whole body... 

Kriff. Apparently, they’d amped the strength of this kind of drug way up since Cassian had been given one as part of counter-interrogation training. That had felt like rewinding to adolescence: everything made him horny and distracted, but it had been possible to work around his arousal, to tune it out and focus on other things.

This was not the same at all. His body wouldn’t listen to his brain without repeated commands, and his brain was obsessed with Jyn. Cassian’s fingers kept sliding up her ribs, wanting to trace the soft underside of her breast. When he moved his hand back down to her waist, it fell lower to mold around the curve of her hip. He swore at himself silently and dragged his grip firmly back to stay at her waist. He ignored his erection because thinking about it only made it worse.

The shaft of sunlight had moved half a metre down the wall before Jyn’s breathing became less ragged and gulping. They kept walking, and gradually her knees firmed a little; she was carrying more of her own weight. She pulled away, tried to stand up unsupported and wobbled, staggering against his side.

“Better now?” His arm tightened around her and he forced his fingers to relax and loosen one by one. 

“Not much,” Jyn muttered. “Worst hangover of my life.” 

She shook her head sharply and the ends of her hair whipped across his skin. She blinked, looking down at her body and his with a grimace. “These banthabrains really embraced all the clichés. I’m dressed like a Nar Shaddaa dancer, and your skirt’s almost as short as mine.”

Cassian choked down an unwilling laugh. “Glad you find my humiliation amusing.” 

“You’re still better off than me. For something so tiny, this top is damned itchy.” She crossed her arms over her chest, hunching her shoulders forward, and the heavy chain smacked into the back of his knees. The image of Jyn’s tender skin chafed pink by the rough metal weave planted itself in Cassian’s head and he had to clench his hands to keep them still.

“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

“For what?” she said irritably. “Even you can’t turn this into your fault, Cassian.”

He wished she wouldn’t lie to spare his feelings. “Odds are it was my contact who decided we’d be more useful as a source of credits.”

Jyn scoffed. “I’ve been sold out by plenty of people who claimed to be my friend. It’s not on you, it’s on him.”

“Trust me, I’m looking forward to discussing it with Eritt.” 

The lock rattled. She looked at him with a question in her eyes and he nodded. Without a word, the two of them moved toward the door in unison. It opened inward on Jyn’s side, and a Gamorrean carrying some kind of injector gun entered. Jyn ducked low to trip him with the chain, sending him sprawling into the corner. Cassian reached over her to grab the second guard following with the keys. He pulled him inside the cell and kicked the door shut.

Cassian yanked Jyn nearer to gain more play in the chain and threw it over the guard’s head. With a snap of his wrists he crossed it over and pulled, arms straining. His muscles were still weak but he clenched his jaw and bore down, exerting all his strength. The shortened chain forced Jyn to come close enough that the boar could snap at her with frothing tusks, but she grabbed his snout in both her hands and clamped it shut. Her arms glistened with gold dust and streaks of sweat.

The guard sagged into unconsciousness, pulling the chain down with dead weight, and Cassian lowered the body, untwisting the chain from around his neck. The other Gamorrean had either cracked his head on the floor or was smart enough to play dead, because he wasn’t moving. 

Cassian bent and ran his hands quickly over the guard’s belt. No control wand on this one, just keys. So they were chained together until they found something else that could free them. Shit. Well, there was nothing they could do about it, and the clock was running. 

They gagged the two Gamorreans and trussed them up with the belts and straps of the guard’s uniform. Cassian picked up the injector—he had no idea what was in it, but at least they might be able to bluff a threat with it—and opened the door cautiously, edging in front of Jyn. To the left was a blank wall, to the right a short corridor with another closed door at the end. There were no other guards in sight, and no other cell doors. At least it was easy to figure out which way to go.

 

In an incredible stroke of luck—Cassian chose to believe it was the Force making it up to them for the rest of this catastrophic clusterfuck—there were no guards on the exterior door they finally stumbled across, probably because it was bolted from the inside.

Or possibly because, as he saw when he cracked it open a few millimetres, it let out into the small courtyard of the guards’ barracks. A handful of shady-looking armed bravos of various species were sitting around a firepit, drinking from a shared flask. 

But on the other side of the courtyard, conveniently close to the alley exit, was a battered old speeder bike. Cassian looked down at the top of Jyn’s head, tucked under his arm so she could see past him. “How fast can you hotwire it?” he whispered. 

“Fast enough.” She rose on the balls of her feet. “Let’s go.”

They sprinted for the speeder, the chain dangling between them almost tripping them up until Jyn hauled it in, reeling it around her arm. Cassian stumbled but caught himself and kept moving. He threw a leg over the seat, not caring about exposure, and Jyn scrambled on in front of him. 

Jyn hadn’t exaggerated her hot-wiring skill—she was faster at it than Cassian, certainly, faster than anyone Cassian had seen except K-2. By the time all of the guards were on their feet, shouting incoherently, she was revving the engine. Cranking the handlebars, she reversed in a tight arc that sprayed gravel at the guards, and wrenched the throttle as high as it would go. The bike shot down the alley and Cassian dropped the injector to throw both of his arms around her waist before he fell off the back. 

"Which way?" she screamed as they flew down the narrow passage, his head narrowly missing a rickety set of metal stairs. 

Cassian scanned the darkening sky, trying to figure out which direction to go. "East!" he shouted in her ear, pointing over her shoulder at the next intersection. She gunned the throttle again and practically laid the bike on its side as they screamed around the corner. All Cassian could do was hold on to Jyn.

This street was wider; a more residential area with less traffic. Jyn revved again and they shot down the straightaway like a burst from an ion cannon. When they reached the outskirts of town she boosted the throttle even higher. If Cassian had thought she was speeding before, now she was racing. He could barely see with the wind whipping his hair and hers into his eyes. He didn't know how Jyn could see where she was going, either. 

Cassian's arms were still wrapped tight around her and he didn't dare let go. He pressed himself closer to her back and shouted over her shoulder, "Stop! Stop for a second." There was no point in dying in a fiery crash after a miraculous escape, and they still had to figure out if they were headed in the right direction.

She dove into a stand of brush and braked so hard they both nearly went forward over the handlebars. The sudden silence was a relief to his ringing ears. "I think we did it," Jyn said breathlessly, squirming forward on the seat to put a little distance between them. 

Cassian detached himself carefully from her back. "Now we just need to find the ship." His navcompass had vanished with the rest of their clothes and weapons, of course. In the overall scheme of this disaster, that was a very minor irritant, but Cassian was still angry at the thought of all that stolen gear. The Rebellion wasn't so rich that it could afford to lose valuable tech on every mission. And Jyn, of course, had lost her necklace; from hints he’d picked up, he was fairly sure it was the only remembrance of her family she had left, which made it priceless.

But they didn’t have time to search for Eritt or anything that had been taken from them. They needed to find their ship and get off planet. Now.

It was already dim beneath the scrubby blue-leaved trees in this small wood. Jyn shivered and he could see goosebumps rising on her arms. 

He looked away at the horizon. Given the direction of the setting sun, Cassian was pretty sure that the ship's hiding place was south of here. They'd set it down behind a rocky outcrop full of mineral deposits that would diffuse sensor scans and the hills in that direction looked familiar. He pointed them out to Jyn. 

"Do you want me to drive or navigate?" he asked. 

"I'll drive, you steer," Jyn said. 

He placed his hands carefully back at her waist, trying to figure out some way to take a secure hold without groping her. He'd hoped that the drug had worked its way out of his system, but now that the immediate rush of their flight was over, his obsession with the feel of her body next to him was returning.

Jyn launched the bike at top speed again, whipping through the forest like it was a pod-racing course. Cassian gave up on restraint and clung to Jyn like a vine.

 

The whine of the old shuttle’s engine straining to make hyperspace had never sounded sweeter to Cassian. He let his head fall back onto the seat rest as silver streaks filled the viewscreen. For the first time in hours, the steel bars of tension in his neck began to soften.

They'd been able to cut through the chain connecting them with a vibroblade, at least, even if the manacles would have to wait until they reached base. The next thing he needed was to dig through his pack for some actual clothes to wear, but Jyn had disappeared into the tiny cabin and shut the door and he didn’t want to disturb her. Or to think about her slipping out of the brief golden skirt...

He dragged his thoughts back to piloting and re-checked his hasty hyperlane calculations for something to do. But after fifteen minutes, he'd gone through them twice and the door remained closed. 

Cassian didn't want to be within arms’ length of Jyn again until he was capable of thinking about something other than her body. But maybe he could grab some clothes and get dressed in the cockpit. Once he had more than a flimsy skirt on, he’d feel better prepared to handle the trip back to base. He engaged the autopilot and tapped on the door.

“Jyn? Everything alright?”

“Fine!” she snarled, so loudly that she must be standing just on the other side of the door. 

Cassian knew that tone of Jyn’s voice, and it wasn’t fine. He told himself to go back to the cockpit, but hesitated outside the door, wondering if he dared to ask permission to come in. He was still hovering indecisively when she called out, her voice tight and angry. “Cassian? A little help?”

When he opened the door, Jyn was contorted with her hands behind her head, trying to undo the ties at the nape of her neck. “I can’t get this thing _off_!” She kept yanking at the knots, her face flushed with frustration. The angle of her raised arms lifted her small breasts higher, emphasizing each slight curve.

Cassian swallowed with a painful click and tried to keep his voice even and calm. “Turn around and let me see.” 

She snarled under her breath, but dropped her hands to her sides and turned her back to him, tilting her chin down. Cassian moved forward to examine the knots at the top of her taut spine. Her skin still glowed with a golden sheen, and when he pushed her hair out of the way over one shoulder the maddeningly sweet smell of roses exploded. But this close to her, underneath the perfume he could detect a faint trace of the scent he recognized on his shirts and jackets after Jyn borrowed them. The way he thought she would taste, if he ever—he slammed the door closed on that thought and refocused on the laces.

Jyn’s impatient tugging had only pulled them tighter until they bit into her skin. There was so little give in them now that Cassian couldn’t work gently. He had to splay his whole hand against her shoulder blade as he teased at the knots, trying to find a starting point that would let him unravel the tangle.

Several frustrating minutes of fumbling only succeeded in making him feel like an idiot. The muscles of Jyn’s back drew tenser and tenser beneath his fingers. What was he doing? This was ridiculous. “These knots won’t come loose, I’ll have to cut it. Is that alright?”

“I don’t care. I just want it off,” she said, breathless and strained. 

There was a small folding knife in the side pocket of his duffle. Cassian took a deep breath and waited for his hand to steady before he gathered Jyn’s hair out of the way again and delicately worked the flat of the blade under one of the taut cords. He sawed at it carefully, cutting away from her body, paring his attention down only to the sharp edge he was using and not the soft skin beneath it. 

The cord finally snapped, one end flicking against Jyn’s skin. “Ow, shavit!” The whole length unraveled at once; the top sagged, falling away from her chest, and she hastily crossed her arms over herself to hold it up. 

Red marks on her pale back showed where the ties had bitten into her skin, crossing over old healed scars. Cassian winced. He was hyper-aware of his body—every breath, every pulse and twitch—and at the same time he felt like an observer, a passenger in his own skin. He folded the knife in his right hand shut and dropped it to the deck at his feet. He watched his fingertip drift up to touch Jyn’s shoulder blade and, shaking, trace along one of the indented lines. 

Jyn inhaled sharply. Goosebumps rose on the nape of her neck and she swayed backward, the swell of her ass brushing his groin. Cassian’s own breath jammed in his throat. He was standing far too close to her, and the thin cloth he wore did absolutely nothing to conceal his body’s reaction. 

He had to step away but his feet wouldn’t move. He wanted—Force, he wanted, and he was stupid enough to think she might want the same thing. No, that was the drug whispering to him. That was why he had barely enough self-awareness left to know that this was a bad idea, and not enough to stop.

He’d told himself this ache he felt was residual emotion left over from the shock of nearly dying together. He’d waited for it to fade, but it hadn’t. Maybe it wouldn’t until he acted on it. Some part of Cassian knew how thin that rationalization was, and didn’t care.

Cassian’s pulse crashed in his ears, a roaring white noise. He bent his head, bringing his lips so close to her skin that they grazed the fine down at her hairline. The smell of roses and Jyn was dizzying. 

Jyn took another deep breath that lifted her back under his fingertips. Slowly, deliberately, she uncrossed her arms and let the mesh covering her breasts slip to the ground with a whisper of links. 

The last restraint inside him snapped, like the moment in an interrogation when the subject breaks at last and tells anything and everything they know. Cassian had seen it from the other side; he recognized the moment of no return. If he didn’t get away from the warm buzzing static of Jyn’s presence right now, he would give in, haul her against him and... 

And what? 

If she responded, it would be because of the drug; if she didn’t, he’d have to lock himself in this cabin—and either way, he’d have destroyed their partnership. Jyn would never be able to trust him again.

Cassian fisted his hands behind him and stumbled backward. He had to swallow twice before he could force any words out of his dry throat. “All done.” He grabbed his duffel and fled, slamming the door behind him.

He rested his forehead on the cold metal, shuddering and gasping for breath. He wondered if Jyn was leaning against the other side of the door that separated them, as confused and tormented as he was. The scent of roses still hung in the air; he didn’t think he’d ever smell it again without flinching.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **firefeufuego** , **ohbeeone** , **tehanufromearthsea** and **thezelbinion** enabled me and gave helpful beta commentary. The title is not their fault; I can never resist a terrible pun.


	2. Chapter 2

Jyn had never been this embarrassed around Cassian before. Then again, she’d never had to listen to him give a briefing while she tried not to remember the way his lips felt on the skin of her neck, or how she'd pressed herself against him without any shame. How he'd jerked away from her, as though she were radioactive, and slammed the door between them.

She shifted on her feet and rubbed the back of her neck, scratching at the heat rising there.

“Jyn? Did you get that?” He was looking at her, arms folded over his chest and nothing but mild concern on his face. 

“Sounds good,” she said automatically, with no idea what she’d just agreed to. She stared at the rank plaque on his jacket and its two pips to avoid meeting his eyes. An instant of surprise flickered across his face as if he hadn't expected her to say yes so easily. Shavit.

When the briefing ended, she scrambled for the door without a word to Cassian, jogging to catch up with Bodhi. “Refresh my memory. What did I just agree to?”

“You're coming with me. Two week supply run, departing at 1600 today.” Bodhi squinted at her, one brow raised in curiosity. “Were you even awake in there?” 

“No,” she said promptly, reaching out to tug on his ponytail. “Knew I could count on you to pay attention for me.”

He flicked her nose in retaliation and the conversation deteriorated into a scuffle—a short one. Within ten seconds, Jyn had her arm locked under his chin and his head trapped in the angle of her elbow. “Hey! You're supposed to be protecting me, not beating me up,” he complained. 

“I can do both.” She ruffled Bodhi's hair for good measure before letting him go. If she was going to make it to the hangar in time, she had to pack quickly.

 

Bodhi had turned out to be one of the Alliance's most effective agents for procuring materiel. His sabacc face and Jedhan haggling skills made him a great negotiator, and his ridiculously pretty eyes made people feel like they either wanted to do him a favour or were getting away with murder. Fortunately, they rarely realized they'd been had until he'd already taken off. 

Jyn had been his armed escort before on a few runs when he was picking up valuable cargo. She usually enjoyed it; watching Bodhi work was entertaining, and she always liked flying with him. 

This time, it felt like a punishment—like Cassian couldn't stand to work with her any more after what had happened on Acherin. Out of habit, her hand drifted up to her breastbone, seeking her crystal and finding only an empty space. 

She blew her bangs out of her face with a sigh and checked the tape on the grip of her spare blaster. She dumped it in her pack along with a couple of shirts that were (mostly) clean.

Jyn’s instinct was to throw herself headfirst into doing the most reckless thing possible. She knew that. And because she knew that, she’d managed to resist her own nature for months. She’d held back; not from wanting Cassian, but from doing anything about it. But it had been so tiring. 

Then their last mission had given her the chance—more than a chance, the perfect excuse—to reach for what she wanted. How was she supposed to restrain her impulses when she and Cassian were alone, practically naked, and high on the adrenaline rush of a successful escape?

So she hadn’t, and that’s when things fell apart.

Jyn didn't flatter herself that she was irresistible, but she thought she'd sensed an answering current of attraction in Cassian. He trusted her, at least, and he wasn't the kind of person who trusted easily. But she must have misread the signals. After that electric, searing moment of closeness that still recurred in her dreams, he’d made it blindingly clear he wasn’t interested. He’d fled from her and kept a closed door or the width of the cabin between them for the rest of the voyage.

And then, once they were back on base, he’d been able to act as though nothing had ever happened. He remained irritatingly calm and competent, as always. The only difference was that all of the unthinking touches had stopped: no more hand resting on her arm or elbow, no more companionable shoulder bumps as they waited in the mess line. When her frustration ramped up, she no longer felt his fingertips at the centre of her back, grounding her.

Which was a good thing, because now when Cassian stood beside her she was jumpy and distracted. The distance between them was charged with too much power, like an overloaded circuit. If he touched her, she’d probably give off sparks. 

She'd been so close to what she wanted it was hard to remember that she couldn't have it. Not to stare at her partner’s lips and wonder how they tasted, or what the lean muscle of his forearms would feel like wrapped around her. What would it take to crack the hard, impermeable shell of his self-control? 

Not her, at any rate.

Frankly, Jyn was starting to feel a little pathetic. So far her crush on Cassian had survived five standard months and counting. It had lasted through six missions, seventeen sparring matches (Jyn led 10 to 7), the horrifying discovery that he was a morning person, and a running argument over which of them ought to take gunner position when Bodhi and K-2 were piloting. She supposed it only made sense that his decisive rejection of her hadn’t killed it either.

She closed up her pack and told herself that getting off the same planet would be a good start. A couple of weeks away and some quality time with Bodhi ought to help clear her mind. If she were lucky, maybe she'd even get to crack a few stormtrooper helmets. By the time they returned, she’d have managed to forget about Cassian as anything but her partner.

 

Jyn got the distraction she’d wished for. It was a hectic trip, with enough bargaining to occupy Bodhi and enough risk to keep her attentive. Although she didn’t get to bash in any bucketheads, she had to start an all-out bar brawl to get Bodhi out of a negotiation gone sour, which was almost as satisfying. And she could honestly say she'd been too busy to think about Cassian at least 80 percent of the time.

But she returned to discover that he and K-2 were gone on another covert mission. Mere enlisted grunts like Jyn and Bodhi didn’t have the security clearance to know what, where, or for how long. 

More time without having to see Cassian every day should have been welcome. Instead, it made her brain whirl with unfocused anxiety. Her heart started to race whenever she imagined everything that could go wrong if she weren’t there to watch his back. What if K-2 couldn’t protect him? What if someone doublecrossed him again? 

Chirrut had tried to lead Jyn through meditation once—just once. She’d felt ridiculous listening to him talk about the body as a flowing river of energy. She was neither patient nor flowing. The only things that had ever made her feel as calm and centred as Chirrut described were her mother’s crystal and Cassian’s company. Now she had neither of them. 

Jyn had tried to convince herself that was better, that it meant she’d only shed more weaknesses. Saw would certainly have told her so. But then she’d remember how he had died—alone, almost unmourned—and she couldn’t help wondering if some weaknesses might be worth it.

After a week, Cassian and K-2 still hadn’t returned. Not knowing whether they were on schedule or overdue was driving Jyn into orbit. There was no point in trying to get anything out of Draven or his staff. The tanglevine of gossip that ran through the base could be surprisingly reliable, but not if it depended on someone as close-mouthed as Cassian dropping a clue about where he was headed. Slicing into his file would get her reprimanded, or possibly demoted if she were really unlucky, but she was starting to seriously consider it. 

Jyn had taken to detouring through the main hangar on her way to each meal so she could check the manifest and note any new ship arrivals—but again today, there was no-one and nothing that could be their return passage. Her hand reached up to the empty space between her breasts before falling back to her side. She sighed and decided against heading to the mess tonight. Right now she just wanted to be alone. 

She hit the communal freshers—they were always quiet over the main dinner hour—and stole a towel for the short walk to her quarters after dumping her dirty clothes in the laundry. She’d find something to sleep in and go to bed early. 

Her plan was spoiled by Bodhi banging on her door while she was still drying off. “Force sake, Rook, hold up,” she shouted, hopping into her long underwear on the way across the room. “I told you—”

It was Cassian, looking tired and rumpled, his hair hanging lank in his eyes.

“You’re back.” Jyn hoped he’d attribute the blush rising on her face from her inane statement to heat from the fresher. “Did you just land?” 

That might possibly be the only stupider comment she could have made. She bit the inside of her lip to disguise a grimace. He must have—she could still smell the carbon and ozone scent of recycled ship air on his jacket. 

“Yes.” His eyes flickered over her wet hair, dripping dark trails down her undershirt, and shifted away. “Sorry about the timing. Can I come in for a second?”

“Fine.” She turned away, leaving him to follow her in.

Jyn didn’t know what to do while Cassian was in her room. She didn’t want to stand while he talked, as though this were a mission briefing. For lack of anywhere else to sit, she wandered over and perched on the footlocker at the end of her bed. She tucked her hands under her thighs to keep them from reaching for the absence around her neck again.

Cassian stopped a careful four paces away, with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his worn leather jacket. Jyn stared at the peeling toes of his boots and wished he didn’t feel the need to maintain such a clearly defined distance between them now. She missed the reassurance of knowing he’d be within arms’ reach whenever possible. 

He cleared his throat. “Kay and I went back to Acherin.” 

A spark of curiosity ignited in Jyn and her head jerked up. “Is that where you were? Draven wouldn't say anything."

Cassian didn’t look surprised. “He sent us to search for Eritt and see whether we could tie off that loose end.” 

“Did you find him?” Jyn wasn’t optimistic. Surely anyone with half a brain who’d betrayed the Alliance would have taken the money and run. 

Cassian nodded. “Yes. It was him. And he won’t be selling anyone else out to slavers.” 

It seemed Eritt hadn’t been that smart. 

“Good,” Jyn said with quiet, vicious satisfaction. This was one of the very few points she knew she, Saw and Draven would have been in complete agreement on: betrayal ought to be followed by consequences extreme enough to deter anyone else who might think to try it.

“We searched his room in case he’d hung on to any useful intel. And I found this.” He drew his right hand out of his pocket and held it out toward her, uncurling his fist. 

Nestled in his palm was her mother’s kyber crystal. 

Jyn gulped a sudden mouthful of air and almost choked on it. Both of her hands flew up to cover her mouth, trying to press back a helpless shocked noise. 

Cassian kept talking, uncharacteristically long-winded. “The thong you had it on was gone, so I tried to find something else, but all I could get was a chain. I hope that’s okay...”

Jyn managed to stand on trembling legs. She snatched the crystal out of his hand and brought it to her lips, closing her eyes at the achingly familiar feel of its smooth, time-polished facets. 

“Thank you,” she whispered in a cracked voice. “Thank you.” So much emotion was crammed into her overflowing chest that she thought she might choke or break her ribs. 

Jyn had tried to resign herself to the loss of her mother’s talisman. She’d told herself it was a miracle she’d been able to hang on to it for so many years in the first place—which was true—but that hadn’t been a comfort in the middle of the night when she woke with her fist clenched around nothing at her breast. 

She hadn’t told him what it was or what it meant, but sharp, observant Cassian had known that she’d give almost anything to have it back. And he’d been the one to restore it to her. 

Jyn opened her eyes, blinking away welling tears, and found she was a step closer to him. Her arms reached out unthinkingly and she almost hugged him before she remembered that he didn’t want her to touch him anymore. To cover up the motion, she handed the crystal back to him and turned around. “Could you...?” 

Cassian dropped the crystal over her head and drew the ends of the chain together around her neck. Jyn tensed at the unintentional echo of memory; he was standing behind her just as he had on the ship away from Acherin. He was careful not to touch her skin, but she could feel the warmth of his fingers, deft and precise, as he manipulated the small clasp until it caught. When he let go of the chain, the crystal fell into its proper home next to her heart. Jyn curled her hand around it again, unwilling to let go of it for even a second. 

She turned and looked up at him. This carefully measured distance, a few centimetres between them, was the closest they’d been since that Force-damned shuttle trip. Cassian was watching her through his thick downcast lashes in a way that made her breath catch and all of her useless wishes return. 

“I’m glad I was able to return it to you.” The words were cheerful, but his voice was low and somber. His gaze darted away from her and he shoved his hands in his pockets again, shifting his weight on to his heels and taking a step back. “I should go start writing my report.”

Fuck this. Jyn wasn't going to give up without a fight. She wanted to keep Cassian’s friendship, even if that was all she could ever have. 

“Wait.” Her voice tried to wobble, but she wouldn’t let it. “Cassian, wait.”

He looked back at her, patient but cautious. It hurt to see that wary look on his face and to know that he was worried about what she’d say. 

She took a deep breath and tried to gather some coherent words. “Listen, I want to go back to the way things used to be, okay? Just—just tell me what I need to do to make that happen.” Her throat was constricted and aching, but she managed to force her lips into the shape of a smile that might look real. “I’m good at forgetting. I can erase everything that happened on Acherin, if that’s what it takes.”

Yeah, she’d still think about what his bare chest looked like, and wonder how it would feel to kiss the lopsided smile off his mouth. But she could live with that—she’d be happy with it—if it meant going back to what they had before. It wasn’t Cassian’s fault that she’d overreached. Jyn realized too late that the smile on her face had frozen into an expression that couldn’t look natural. 

“I can’t forget.” His voice was flat, all the emotion filtered out of it. 

Jyn flinched as though Cassian had punched her. She only remembered feeling pain this sharp once before, when a mugger’s vibroblade skated off her rib instead of going into her side. 

“I shouldn’t have touched you when we were both drugged. That’s not how—”

“Drugged?” Jyn echoed. She shook her head, feeling slow and stupid. “What are you talking about?” Her hand clenched harder around the crystal’s comforting solidity.

“The slavers gave us some kind of disinhibitor.” Cassian shoved a hand through his hair, the first sign of agitation she’d seen him display in this conversation. “Like an aphrodisiac.” 

“You're kidding,” she said blankly. “Those things are real? Seriously? I thought that was just holodrama stuff.”

“They're not common, but they exist. I recognized it because I'd been given something similar before. It's part of counter-interrogation training.” His voice remained cool and unaffected, his eyes level on hers, but faint colour bloomed high on his cheekbones.

Jyn still couldn’t believe it. Wouldn't someone have said something to her?

Now that she thought about it, her post-mission checkup had involved more blood tests than usual, and more discreet inquiries about whether she felt the need to talk to a confidential counsellor droid. She hadn’t paid much attention at the time, too wrapped up in her own misery and confusion about what she'd done wrong.

Jyn stumbled backward and her heel smacked against the corner of the footlocker. She thumped heavily down on it, trying to throttle back her hyperventilating breath. Bitter nausea rose in her throat. This whole shitty situation was suddenly even more awful and embarrassing than she'd thought.

She must not have been able to control her expression because Cassian dropped to a crouch in front of her. He looked as stunned as she’d ever seen him, eyes wide and his mouth slightly open. “You didn’t know?”

“Does _everyone_ on this fucking base know, except for me?” Infuriatingly, her voice trembled on the question. 

“No,” he reassured her instantly. He reached out as though he were going to touch her knee, and then pulled back, the flush on his face darkening. “The medics will keep it confidential. It's in my report to Draven, but those are classified. And he's seen everything, Jyn. He doesn't care.”

She still shuddered with humiliation at the thought of a superior officer knowing what had happened on that ship. Kriff, she hoped Cassian had left out some of the gratuitous details. 

“You really didn't know?” He cleared his throat and his fingers twitched. “It was strong. Stronger than I'd seen before.” The tone of his voice had reverted to pure spy, so bland and affectless it was impossible to read.

Jyn took refuge in her gathering anger—anything was better than humiliation and grief. “No, I didn’t,” she spat. “I thought it was just relief. The rush from escaping.”

“You didn’t find it strange that we were both so… distracted?”

“Maybe a little,” she admitted grudgingly. “But, Cassian, we were half-naked and chained together! It didn’t seem that weird for me to be thinking about sex with you. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t think about it a lot anyways—” 

Karking hell. Jyn shut her eyes, feeling blood rush into her cheeks and stain her whole face and neck with shameful heat. But she kept her head high; if she had to confess, it was best to be brutally quick, like pulling out a tooth. Then they could have a good laugh at how juvenile she'd been. 

She just couldn’t look at Cassian while she said it. She kept her eyes shut, to spare herself from having to see what was on his face when she told him. 

“I'm sorry. I thought we were both, you know, into it…” She tried to turn the strained, broken note in her voice into a laugh. “I didn’t realize you only touched me because you were as high as a satellite.”

“Jyn.” His voice wrapped around her name, low and raw, and she shivered. “That wasn’t it. I knew that neither of us were in our right minds, and I didn't care. I came so close to just—” 

He paused, choking on words, and she had to open her eyes again. But she couldn't look straight at him; she focused on the ragged border of his beard to keep from staring at his mouth. His jaw flexed in that damnably distracting way it did when he was trying to hold back a reaction. 

“That whole trip was… it was unbearable.” He swallowed, and she watched the muscles of his throat work up and down. “Do you remember that gold dust? All I could think about was how much I wanted to know whether it was all over your skin. I couldn’t see straight, I could hardly concentrate on flying us out of there.”

He braced his arms on the footlocker to either side of her and leaned in toward her. She could feel the quivering strain in his muscles; his warmth and scent hit her like a blow. It was too hard to look at Cassian when her senses were so overwhelmed. She closed her eyes again and tried to remember how to breathe.

“It wasn’t because of the drug that I touched you. I mean, it was, but the only reason I stopped was because I thought you were feeling it worse than me. And I didn’t want you to hate me after it wore off.” 

Jyn’s lips had parted unthinkingly; her pulse was thumping in her head. Waves of heat and cold rippled over her. Her hands were clenched on the edge of the locker, her knuckles stretched pale. She was frozen, unable to move. Not even the air in her lungs stirred.

Cassian lowered his head another fraction closer to hers. His hair fell forward, brushing her cheek, and Jyn trembled convulsively. Her skin was burning, her body aware of every millimetre that separated it from him. 

His whisper in her ear was desperate. “If you really want this, Jyn, please, please tell me. I need to hear it.” 

The warm breath carrying his words gusted over the skin of her neck and she shivered again. “ _Yes_ ,” she gasped. “I want you—”

His mouth colliding with hers interrupted her, and then she stopped wasting her breath on talking when she could be using it to kiss him. She was consumed by the scrape of his beard on her chin and the burningly sweet touch of his lips. 

Cassian’s hands anchored themselves in her hair and tightened. She locked her arms around his neck and fell backward onto her bunk, dragging him down with her. Only their upper bodies were on the mattress, their legs still awkwardly draped over the hard angles of the footlocker. Jyn wriggled farther up the bed, and Cassian moved with her as though they were chained together again, their mouths fused.

She shouldn’t have been surprised that Cassian kissed just as seriously as he did everything else. He explored every corner of her mouth, slowly and thoroughly, and then moved on to map the skin of her neck and trace the line of her collarbone with his lips while he cupped her skull like something fragile and precious. 

Jyn’s hands wouldn’t settle; they tangled in Cassian’s hair, darted under his jacket, roamed over his body, greedy for more of him. She tugged his shirt loose so that she could feel the hard, wiry muscle of his back under her fingertips. It wasn’t until he groaned in her ear that Jyn realized she was arching into him, pressing up in a slow, seeking rhythm. So she did it again, rolling her whole body against his and feeling his breathing stutter against the crook of her neck. 

His mouth brushed lower and lower in a slick glide down the column of her throat, pushing the low neck of her shirt aside. Jyn was already holding her breath, anticipating his lips on the slope of her breast when his open-mouthed kiss turned into a wide-hinged yawn.

“Kriff, sorry.” Cassian muffled his apology in the fabric of her shirt. “Sorry. This isn’t... I haven’t slept in 18 hours and it’s catching up with me.”

“It’s okay.” She twisted her fingers in his hair, dragged his head back up and pressed her mouth to his, savouring small bites of him, defining the shape of his lips with her tongue. Right now she felt like she could live on nothing but the taste of his mouth. “When I fuck you, I want both of us awake enough to enjoy it,” she teased, deliberately low and dirty, punctuating the words with another roll of her hips.

He rested his forehead against hers, exhaling a sigh loaded down with all the months they’d spent pulling against the link drawing them together. “Jyn,” he groaned. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack? Because that would mean a longer wait.” 

“No. I just want you to get some sleep.” Her hand crept up higher under his shirt, pressing him close. 

“This already feels like a dream.” He drew his nose along the damp, curling strands at her hairline, breathing her in. “If I go to sleep now, I’m afraid I’ll wake up alone.” 

A wispy, surprised laugh escaped Jyn. “I’ve had those dreams too. But I’m pretty sure we’re awake right now.” She slid her fingers around his side and pinched his flank, hard. He yelped and his body jerked against hers, his knee digging into her leg. 

“See?” She murmured into his ear. “We’re not dreaming, we’re not drugged. And I want you—all of you. As soon as you’re conscious.”

She could feel the curve of his smile against her cheek more than see it. An unsteady breath hissed out of him and his body sagged on top of hers, a satisfying weight. 

Jyn couldn’t resist kissing Cassian once more, sinking her teeth into his bottom lip to make him moan, but then she pulled away. She slid her hand down to his wrist and tugged at his sleeve. "Up." He complied, twisting his shoulders high enough that she was able to push his jacket off and drop it to the floor. 

"I should—" Another jaw-cracking yawn interrupted whatever excuse he was about to make. She nudged him over, rolled into his side and drew his head into the shelter of her breast. Her hands found the curve of his spine, the rise and fall of his ribs. The kyber crystal was a reassuring lump pressed tight between them.

“You should sleep,” she told him again, resting her lips against his hair. She was tired too, and right now all that she needed was here in her arms.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many thanks to **firefeufuego** , **TehanuFromEarthsea** , and **thezelbinion** for looking this over and helping smooth the rough spots.
> 
> I hope you enjoyed it!


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